Enjoy the holiday edition of Ye Olde Mailbag while I figure out why I wait until Dec. 23 to even start shopping. Wish me luck.
Hi, Doug. Best wishes of the season. May you, your family, friends and colleagues have wonderful holidays and a joyous and healthy new year.
Congratulations to the Canadian women’s 3×3 team for winning the AmeriCup over the U.S.A. last week. Minus one Plouffe sister, the team earned their gold medals with an overtime victory. Beauty.
Three end-of-year questions to celebrate the basketball excellence of Stephen Curry, LeBron James and Nikola Jokic.
Curry’s unparalleled shooting ability and his work at all the skills that allow him to excel, as well to overcome career-threatening foot injuries, have made him a change agent for practice, injury rehab and play. He’s referred to himself as “Steve Nash 2.0” and altered the perspective of players, coaches and fans on the tactics of how to play, win games and enjoy basketball (no matter your size or nationality). What Curry play is your most memorable?
As James nears his 40th birthday, and while he’s lost his defensive focus and mojo in this young man’s game, how unimaginable is his 22-season career? Not only output, his ability to evolve and thrive with the different styles of the league since 2003 is remarkable. The one common denominator among sportsmen like LeBron and Nolan Ryan: career-long extreme commitment to maintain their mental and physical edge, all the while continuing to sharpen their skills. What does the near basketball future hold for LeBron?
How extraordinary is Nikola Jokic? While your Irregulars know you don’t enjoy rank-the-players lists, is the rise in appreciation for his unique game bang on?
There’s a new biography out about Jokic that is, reportedly, thorough. Do you know Mike Singer, the author and former Denver Post journalist who now works for the Denver Nuggets?
The author’s story about Jokic‘s shooting release and high arc coming from anger is insightful. His coaches, and father from the stands, would instruct him how to shoot during games (up to U13) because he didn’t like practising (and rarely went). Jokic didn’t like this, so he defiantly shot free throws from behind his head and up to the gym ceiling. That’s funny and speaks to somebody who found his own extreme commitment pathway to the game’s most skilled level.
These three players adapted within a quickly evolving game and shaped the way basketball is played and coached. What legacies.
Shead should be the primary backup point guard until he plays himself out of the job, writes Doug Smith.
Shead should be the primary backup point guard until he plays himself out of the job, writes Doug Smith.
Thanks for the time you take to share your insight and reminiscences, as always.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to Irregulars everywhere.
I can’t think of just one Curry moment. What will live with me forever is how he has basically changed basketball. Not only because of the number of threes he makes, but because of where he takes them. It has changed defensive pickup spots and extended the offence to unimaginable depths around the sport. It really has been something.
LeBron? I was around when he came in and thought no one could live up to the hype. He did. And more. And one of the more admirable things about him, to me, is how he’s lived his entire adult life in a huge global fish bowl and he’s handled himself so, so well, with not a misstep and a huge level of social responsibility.
I know of Mike and we have covered some of the same things. I’m not surprised the Jokic book is great.
I can see that shooting story, for sure. Jokic strikes me as a march to his own tune kind of guy. I think his legacy is that he’s proof you can have a life away from the game and still be able to dominate whenever you want. He toys with the game sometimes.
Ho Ho Ho, Doug. All the best of the holiday season to you and yours! Thanks for another great year of gifting us with your insights.
1) We drafted OG Anunoby while his recovery from injury was in question. We traded for Kawhi Leonard when his ability to play was not guaranteed. Are there any players that you think teams may be sleeping on who’d look good here?
2) When life gives you lemons … Sticking with the theme, which NBA players can salvage their careers or are at least worthy of consideration? Zion Williamson? Ben Simmons? John Wall?
3) I’ve seen some sobering stats on the Raptors earlier this week. They have not won a game when trailing at halftime. Not won a game when trailing by double digits. Not chosen as the favourite by most gambling sites for any games this season (!). They are, however, among the top three teams to cover the spread on games (but not win). Do you see/hear more frustration with all the close losses piling up?
4) Can you briefly outline why teams are NOT interested in DeMarcus Cousins? He’s big, experienced and can shoot threes. Is it all personality?
5) Bonus question: Given the performance of our rookies so far, will Ulrich Chomche appear in an NBA game soon with Jakob Poeltl being unavailable?
Thanks again for your articles. Hopefully either the remaining games or the draft will make up for the first third of the season!
A.J. Lawson and RJ Barrett played basketball together in middle school and St. Marcellinus Catholic Secondary in Mississauga.
A.J. Lawson and RJ Barrett played basketball together in middle school and St. Marcellinus Catholic Secondary in Mississauga.
I can’t think of anyone out there in the OG-Leonard vein except, of course, Zion.
That dovetails into the fact I think he can recapture his spot, but I think Ben Simmons is what he is.
The close losses and the failure to close games is absolutely creating frustration, but not to the point where fingers are being pointed or explosions occur. They might come, though.
I’m not sure Cousins has the game left to help night after night after night after night. But all the players I know who have been a teammate of his speak highly of him as a good guy to have around.
Chomche’s not nearly ready for the NBA. He’s best left all season in the G League and not exposed to being taken advantage of in the big league. Next year, maybe.
Thanks for your insight on the Raptors and basketball in general.
I find the barrage of three-point shots, many of them missed, a big bore. In the current strategy it seems that missed threes, and the inevitable deficit, are followed by more three attempts. What do you think about awarding three points for a dunk? Making and defending against a dunk would showcase the athleticism of the NBAers at least as much as long-range shooting. A dunk three would provide an alternative to the long-range three, and for those that really love the long-range three it will have the side effect of opening up the three-point line.
It’s a unique idea, I admit, and one that I must say I’ve never heard before. So credit for the creativity.
But if you’re creating a new scoring system to “have the side effect of opening up the three-point line” doesn’t that sound, um, counterproductive?
Sorry, can’t be behind this one.
Do you think coaches move the needle at all during an NBA broadcast? TNT kept shrinking the screen during the NBA Cup knockout games to show a single camera shot of a coach. More annoying than informative.
Also, on the NBA website they previewed a game by saying “Houston Rockets vs. Oklahoma City may not have been the marquee NBA Cup matchup the league had hoping for.” Was this just stating the obvious or a real look into how the league thinks?
More than any sport on Earth, basketball is perfectly fitted for video screens in every shape and dimension. To screw with that for a split screen that includes a far-off shot of a coach speaking in coachspeak makes no sense to me. I expect smarter people than I who are in decision-making slots will agree, and the whole silly thing will disappear.
As for the promo? Someone kind of missed it. I sorta see the angle, and it wasn’t hard to knock off the item, but “hey, watch our early-season marquee event, but maybe not” doesn’t work.
And I bet the league thinks like I do.
Sat through the oddly, sometimes exciting game against the Bulls. The Raptors need to improve in consistency in so many ways — and can. The question is: Will they? Let’s start with a little thing. We are 28th in the league in free throws. With our best free-throw shooters out of the lineup for so incredibly long this year, we can imagine there may be a time when this percentage improves and we climb the standings. There was a lot of good to see last night, but so many little things went wrong. And still, if we had just made a couple more free throws the game result would have been different.
The Bucks and the Warriors are worse — and that itself is kind of shocking. Does this show that worrying about our lack of ability at the free-throw line is really something not to spend much time worrying about? It seemed so pertinent last night, and in several other close losses this season.
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (AP) — The chance to rub shoulders with quarterback Josh Allen and use their Toronto connections to broaden the Buffalo Bil…
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (AP) — The chance to rub shoulders with quarterback Josh Allen and use their Toronto connections to broaden the Buffalo Bil…
Rebounds, we are fifth! Offensive rebounds, we are in third! Assists, sixth! That’s pretty elite. You can see why they are sometimes very fun to watch this year. But we’re one of the bottom teams in the league. How can we be that good and so low in the standings? What stats do we need to be looking at to understand why our record is the way it is?
My guess is that we are near the lead in number of days where one of our top four is out with injury. Guessing we’d be battling the Pelicans there for worst impact due to injury. Is there any other statistic that points to why we are so low in the standings?
Lastly, it makes it very hard to evaluate the coaching team. I see improvement in key personnel: Scottie Barnes, Gradey Dick and RJ Barrett obviously, and even Jakob Poeltl. All seem to be having their best ever seasons. Impressive. Surely the coaching team deserves some credit for this, in spite of the record?
The free-throw shooting is an issue, and it is addressed every day at every practice and shootaround. They work and hopefully get better at it.
You can be a good rebounding team and have a bad record because you can’t close games, you’re 3-10 or something in games decided by six or fewer points, and you’ve never once erased a halftime deficit to win a game. Those are the issues.
Yes, Quickley, Barrett and Poeltl playing will help, but this group’s lost too many games it should have won regardless of who’s playing.
And yes, you can absolutely see skill development in all kinds of individuals, so that’s good on the coaching. You can see the collective isn’t as good as perhaps its singular bits, and you can see some coaching growth is needed in some aspects, too.
https://www.thestar.com/sports/doug-smiths-sports-blog/raptors-mailbag-appreciating-the-unique-greatness-of-steph-curry-lebron-james-and-nikola-jokic/article_f3b1a8f4-bfa7-11ef-94d6-97e2308844bc.html
